


Sparks Fly Upwards

by antumbral



Category: Gymnastics RPF, Olympics RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: 2008 Summer Olympics, Disney tour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antumbral/pseuds/antumbral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turns out, the Disney tour they book after the Olympics becomes more complicated than Sasha thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sparks Fly Upwards

When Disney mentions the tour the first time, Sasha doesn’t pay much attention. It’s Disney for Christ’s sake, and they’re all in the middle of prep camp (“Gym hell,” as Raj accurately dubs it on the third day) anyway. During prep camp, no one thinks of anything but the next day, the next three hours, waking up and somehow convincing their exhausted muscles to move again. They’re all giving a hundred and ten percent every day, and Sasha can feel every ounce of the effort in his shoulders at night when the tension and cramps and bruises make sleep elusive. He wanted to be here, he wants a spot on the team, and they don’t just give those away. Olympic dreams get earned with blood and tears. So no, it never really comes up.

*

Camp ends, but training doesn’t. Olympic Trials come and go, and life falls into a routine of breakfast-gym-lunch-nap-weight training-gym-supper-sleep. Some days, Sasha wonders how it will be in Beijing, all this work just to watch the others compete, to sit in the stands and not use any of the routines that just yesterday he’d bruised his hip bone for, and a week ago he’d mildly sprained his ankle. 

Gymnastics isn’t what you might call a forgiving sport. Motivating himself to perfect routines he’ll never use is an exercise in self-discipline, and most days, it doesn’t seem worth it. The chance that any of his work will pay off is miniscule. Not that he begrudges the chance to compete to any of his team members – well, maybe he does begrudge Paul his spot after the rest of them had to go through Nationals – but he likes the whole team, even Paul, and it will be nice for the others to get a chance to shine. It just isn’t the same as competing himself.

He sleeps more soundly when he doesn’t think about the Games, so he tries to focus even more, narrows his life into chalk on his hands and the scream of his biceps when he over-rotates his Thomas circles. Beijing is half a world away by airplane, and Sasha pushes until it seems that far from his mind too.

*

The hotel in the Olympic village features bright yellow walls and beautifully embroidered silk bedcovers. Sasha sits on the edge of his bed, and is working on his fifth set of tricep curls when the knock comes.

“Come in,” he yells, not bothering to stop his exercising. Morgan opens the door but lingers in the doorway shifting his feet until Sasha looks up to see what’s bugging him.

“I withdrew,” Morgan says without preamble. The weight bounces down onto the bed with a squeak of springs, but Sasha doesn’t notice. 

“You –.”

“You’re in. I just,” Morgan sags against the doorframe, and Sasha notices how small he seems, even though Sasha himself isn’t much bigger. “I just, my ankle wasn’t going to do it, so I talked with Paul and Jon last night, and told the committee today. I just couldn’t.” Morgan stares at the carpet.

It seems like the time to comfort the man so Sasha opens his mouth, then realizes he doesn’t have anything to say. Morgan glances up cautiously to check his expression and Sasha snaps his jaw shut, aware that he’s gaping. Stupid. If it’s possible, Morgan hunches into himself even more, hurting and frail, and Sasha feels a sudden surge of sympathy. It can’t be easy to tell someone else that you’re out. Morgan’s giving Sasha the chance of a lifetime, and he’s being generous in letting Sasha know like this. 

“Come in,” he repeats, patting the bed beside himself, and this time Morgan obeys. They sit side by side, staring at the yellow walls. Morgan just looks devastated, it’s easier to see it up close. Good money says he hasn’t slept in days. Sasha really wants to feel sorry for him, but underneath it all is a bubbling elation that all his hard work has paid off, he’s made the team, he’ll get to show the world how good he is. His blood feels carbonated, fizzing through his veins and floating him light-headed with disbelief. It seems appropriate to say something, somehow make the situation less awkward, but everything he thinks of to say seems worn out and inadequate. Finally, Morgan scoots back on the bed, knocks the weight off to the ground, and pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on the left knee. 

“How bad is it?” Sasha asks at last, flicking his wrist toward Morgan’s leg. 

Morgan snorts. “Bad. I mean, it was bad before, but now.” He bites his lip and Sasha sees it turn white. “I just didn’t want things to end like this, you know? This was gonna be it for me, this Olympics, and I didn’t want it to end.” He looks away, mouth tight, eyes gaunt.

It’s ripping Sasha in two to watch him. He’s the replacement; he’s _happy_ Morgan can’t compete, but at the same time he wouldn’t wish Morgan’s grief on his worst enemy. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and the words sound so meager and small that he wishes he had just shut up instead. 

“Yeah,” says Morgan, and sighs, pressing his eyes closed. He uncoils and stands, and doesn’t put any weight on the ankle. “Yeah well, that’s how it goes, huh?” His smile isn’t even in the same zip code as happy, and Sasha’s stomach pangs at the pain carved into the lines around his eyes and mouth. 

Morgan jerks his chin up a little in what might be a salute or might be a dare to be good enough to deserve the spot he’s been given. “See you, Artemev. Good luck.” 

Morgan’s gone.

*

If the Disney thing didn’t even blip on his radar before the Olympics, it shows up like an aircraft carrier afterwards. 

“Six figures, Alexander.” His agent always calls him Alexander. It drives him berserk. “It’s not even three months, and they’re offering you a hundred and fifteen thousand. You don’t say no to that. You’d be crazy to say no to that!”

It’s a lot of money. A _lot_ of money, for practically no work. They aren’t asking him to do hard gymnastics, it’ll be the easiest money he’s ever been given. And he gets to spend three more months hanging out with the other guys. In the end, it’s kind of a no-brainer. 

*

“No,” says Sasha serenely. 

The junior stylist rolls her eyes and huffs out a put-upon sigh. The – _concoction_ is the only word his brain supplies – the concoction on the hanger in her hands looks like a cross between a candy store and a particularly tacky stripper costume. The ordinary gymnastics uniforms are bad enough, and he’s always hated tight fabrics in the first place. There’s no way he’s going on national TV looking like he just stepped out of a very pink porn film. 

“Just put it on.” The other, more senior stylist steps back into the room. “If you still hate it when you’re wearing it, we’ll figure something else out. But you have to put it on to make sure the measurements are right. It’ll be easier for us to change the fabric if we know for sure what measurements we’re working with.”

Sasha’s completely in favor of anything that will make it easy for them to change the fabric, so he takes the costume and steps behind a screen to wiggle into it. He was right. It fits like it was sprayed onto him. There is _no detail_ of his anatomy that is not very very obvious, and he imagines the size jokes that the other guys are going to make over the next three months if they have to wear these things. If he had his way he’d take it right back off so no other living person would see him, but there’s no sense postponing the inevitable.

A door in the back of the room opens just as he steps back out from behind the screen. One of the stylists cocks her head to the side and says “Well it certainly… fits. I just don’t think it’s _him_ , though. Not his color.” Sasha barely hears her because he’s busy dying of embarrassment after Paul and Morgan step through the door. 

Paul is in the lead as usual, but Morgan's keeping up well, and isn’t limping anymore. They lift their eyebrows in perfect unison and Paul says, “Well.” Morgan just blinks at him a few times. Sasha wants to melt through the floor. 

“Maybe we should change it,” the stylist is saying. “Okay, you can take it off now. Actually, wait, I’ve got an idea.”

She steps into his personal space, and he tries not to flinch as she grabs the straps on his shoulders and jerks them down his arms. 

“Hey,” he squeaks, because that was way too close to actually stripping him, and he’s pretty sure it’s still polite to ask before you strip somebody in front of their teammates. 

“There,” says the stylist, settling the fabric just below his waist, so that his chest is bare and he’s wearing a pair of pants, with the top of the garment hanging like a strange skirt. “Hey, what if we did them all this way? Forget the chest, just do a pair of pants. Something simple, maybe brown or black. Body like this, it seems like a shame to cover it, and you know the teenage girls would go for it.”

“Hmm.” The other stylist steps up and fidgets with the fabric over his hipbones. “What if we went even lower?” She rolls the fabric down until he wonders how he’ll fit a jock strap under a waistline that low.

“I look silly. And they’ll fall off on floor routine,” he points out, trying valiantly to save the whole team from humiliation. 

“I dunno, Sasha. I think they kind of suit you,” Paul says, laughing at him. Morgan gives him a secret, softer smile over his brother’s shoulder. 

“Shut up,” Sasha says, and Paul just laughs harder. 

One of the stylists finishes messing with a measuring tape around his waist, and stands straight again. “Okay, I think we got it. You can change back now.” Sasha vanishes behind the screen as quickly as he can.

When he comes out, Paul is gone, but Morgan’s still waiting for him, and Jon comes up to join them. “Food?” says Jon, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jon always has too much energy. It’s exhausting to watch him sometimes.

“Sure,” says Morgan, accepting for both of them. Jon strides out in the lead, heading for a café down the street. Sasha hangs back, tugging at his shirt collar and trying to feel comfortable in his own skin after the revealing costume. Morgan drops back to walk beside him, hands in his pockets. 

“Hate those costumes.” Sasha tries for conversation.

“I dunno. It wasn’t that bad.” Morgan turns his head to looks at him, and his eyes start on Sasha’s face, but drift downward far enough that Sasha feels a blush creep up his neck. When Morgan looks back up, there’s a furtive speculation in his eyes and Sasha opens his mouth to say something, but he’s not sure what words would have come out because Jon yells at them to hurry up. He’s walking backwards, waving furiously at them, and they both speed up to meet him.

“You know,” he says to Morgan, but Jon hops into the conversation with a question about sub sandwiches, and the next time Sasha looks, whatever seemed strange about Morgan’s expression has passed. 

*

The first night that they perform is sold out, in a huge arena that usually houses basketball. Disney is basically paying them to play around on the apparatus, so Sasha goes out and throws all his fancy-looking tricks, elaborate scissors into spins and traveling circles. There’s another number where four of them switch off: him, Paul, Morgan, and Justin each doing a trick then rotating to the next person. He nails a complicated Wu Guonian combination, and Justin sticks his tongue out at him when he passes off to Justin’s considerably easier handstand. Morgan raises an eyebrow before going out and duplicating the Wu. Paul glances over at his brother, but doesn’t take the bait. 

Sasha and Morgan escalate difficulty through the rest of the routine. The audience loves it, and eventually it’s just the two of them, Justin and Paul choosing to step out and let them have their fun. Sasha slides from the moves he knows into combinations he’s never done before, stuff he’s only thought about but never tried. Morgan imitates everything he can come up with, pushing him harder, egging him on. Toward the end he strings together a full Kehr, a series of flares, a Russian 1080, and ends with a cheeky backflip off the pommel. Morgan just looks at him likes he’s nuts, then goes up to the horse and does a single, slow, perfect handstand. The music crescendos, and Morgan mouths “together” at him on his dismount. They finish in side-by-side flares, careful to avoid each other’s flying legs. The applause brings down the house. There’s so much that the announcer has to bring them out for an encore, and Sasha almost splits his face in half he’s grinning so hard.

That night, in his hotel room, Sasha flops back spread-eagled onto his bed and decides that he likes the tour. Even if Disney is kind of anal about what they can and can’t do – “Disney’s _image_ is its appeal. We can’t have you all running around like hooligans when we’re trying to promote you as all-American good boys” – tonight was the most fun he’s had on pommel in a long time. He thinks about the next three months as he brushes his teeth, three nights a week with performances like this one, and he almost chokes himself on his toothpaste because he’s smiling too much to swallow.

*

Moving from city to city is tough, every second of their time managed and micromanaged. The gymnastics are still thrilling, and the other guys are a blast, but the travel and the rules wear on them all. They’re in Anaheim when Justin finally snaps and tells everyone within earshot that if he doesn’t get out of the hotel and into a club for a few hours, he’s going to grab the next photographer he sees and offer himself and Jon to pose for Playgirl. Their tour manager pales in horror, and that’s how they end up spending most of the night dancing like fools at some place where Nastia winks at the bouncer and they get to walk past the line. 

Sasha dresses up for the occasion, not because he wants to, but because when he leaves his room to head down to where their car is waiting, Nastia takes one look at him and shakes her head. “Let me help you,” she says, and drags him back into his room to survey his closet. 

When it becomes apparent that nothing he owns will suit her, they take a trip to Justin’s room, and Nastia locates a thin shirt that clings to his shoulders and might be see-through in the right light. 

“Perfect,” she pronounces happily, and shepherds him downstairs when he puts it on. In hindsight, he should have known better than to ride in the Suburban with her. He should have waited for the next car. 

They’ve just turned onto a freeway when she opens her tiny purse and extracts a mirror. Sasha isn’t really paying attention, because he’s known for a while that girls’ purses contain a transmogrifier that lets them store a remarkable amount of stuff in a deceptively small space. Nastia examines her makeup in the mirror, touching her eyebrow delicately to smooth it into place. Then she pulls out a tube of something-or-other, turns to him, and says, “Close your eyes.”

Sasha eyes the tube. “Why?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Will I like the surprise?”

“ _I_ will like the surprise,” says Nastia imperiously. “Now close your eyes.”

Sasha sighs and gives in. “Don’t flinch,” says Nastia, which is not reassuring, and in a moment a cold, wet thing touches his eyelid and Sasha jumps. “I said don’t flinch,” repeats Nastia, and holds his chin so that he has to stay still while she lines first one eye then the other.

“Can I at least see myself?” he asks, when he is finally allowed to open his eyes. Nastia purses her lips and considers him in a way that makes him feel sort of like a statue in a museum. 

“I guess so,” she says finally, satisfied, and produces the mirror again. His eyes look huge and unfamiliar in his face and he doesn’t like it, but it’s not like he’ll ever see any of the people at the club again, and it’ll make Nastia happy, so he hands the mirror back without comment. “Are you going to wipe it off the moment I let you out of my sight?” she asks.

“No,” he says truthfully, and feels better about it when she beams back at him.

The club is sweaty and loud, but Sasha has fun. He gets very drunk, dances with five girls who are shorter than him, three who are taller, and one (taller) man who seems flatteringly interested. He also dances with one other guy, but he never sees the face because the guy stays behind him, just slips hands onto his waist and settles into the rhythm like he’s memorized Sasha’s body. The music drops into a dirty grind that’s mostly bass, and Sasha closes his eyes and lets himself just move. The flimsy shirt gets absolutely soaked with sweat in a very short time and molds to every line of his chest and stomach, but two hours into the night Nastia eyes him assessingly and gives him a thumbs up, so he knows that it looks good. It’s not like he’s got a body to be ashamed of. 

In between dancing, he catches Justin making out with a pretty blond, and has some fun sending every girl he can in Jon’s direction just to watch Jon fumble to fend them off with protestations that he has a fiancé. It’s a good night. He’s pretty sure that he either saw Paul and called him Morgan at some point, or maybe he saw Morgan and called him Paul, but he doesn’t feel too bad about it. Most people confuse the twins once or twice. They seem to take it well. 

The whole group closes down the club, and when they drift back outside, the two Suburbans that brought them appear as if by magic so they don’t have to wait for cabs. The clock says 2:30 when he gets back to his hotel room, drenched in sweat, pleasantly exhausted, and still buzzed from the alcohol earlier in the night. Sasha doesn’t bother with the lights in the main room, just goes straight to the bathroom and turns on the light there. He’s staring at himself in the mirror, trying to decide how to get the eyeliner off, when there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he says absently, and runs his finger over his eyelid. Nothing comes off. He hopes it’s not waterproof, he’ll never figure out how to remove it. He closes his eyes to rub at the liner again, and when he opens them a second time, Morgan is standing behind him, watching him in the mirror. He’s only succeeded in smearing the makeup, so now his whole eyelid is black instead of just lined. Morgan snickers at him.

“It’s not funny. I can’t get it off.” 

Morgan just grins wider. “It’s okay. Close your eyes.” 

Sasha squints at him suspiciously. “The last time I closed my eyes, Nastia put makeup on me.”

“And this time I’ll take it off,” says Morgan logically, grabbing a few Kleenex out of the box by the sink and wetting them. 

“You’d better,” says Sasha, but he closes his eyes obediently and doesn’t flinch when Morgan scrubs the Kleenex across his eye. 

“Tell me if I poke your eye out,” says Morgan. “No, don’t open them yet.” More running water, then more Kleenex on his other eye. Morgan isn’t particularly gentle. It hurts a little, but it’s done soon and Morgan steps back. “Okay, now you can open them.”

The makeup is gone for the most part. There’s a little remnant left, right at the base of his lashes where the Kleenex couldn’t get to it, but it doesn’t look like eyeliner. It just looks like his lashes are darker than usual. 

“Thanks.”

The used Kleenex go in the trash bin with a swish, and Morgan follows him out of the bathroom into the main room, turning out the lights behind himself. Sasha’s reaching for the bedside lamp when Morgan sits down on the edge of the bed and Sasha somehow forgets about the switch. Morgan’s watching him like he wants to talk, and there’s something intense and afraid on his face that makes Sasha think whatever he’s come to say will go easier in the dark. He settles back against the headboard and waits.

“I thought I should tell you,” Morgan says, not looking at him, “You were meant to have that spot, not me. It was the right thing for the team.”

“You’d have done just as well.” It’s not flattery, he’s seen Morgan compete.

Sasha thinks maybe Morgan’s shaking his head, but it’s hard to see in the dark. “This was your time. I had mine years ago. I mean, I’m not a big enough person to really say I’m glad of it,” and Sasha can hear the pained half-smile in his voice, “But it was the right thing. I thought you should know.” 

He stands up to leave, but the conversation isn’t really over. “Wait,” Sasha says, and Morgan turns back, a shadow in front of the window. “I never thanked you,” he says then kicks himself mentally because he sounds like a dolt. “I mean, not that you got hurt. I don’t mean. But. You didn’t have to tell me yourself that night and you didn’t have to be nice about it and you were and you still showed up for the events and - .” Now he’s babbling. 

Maybe it’s the remnants of the alcohol, or maybe it’s the dark. Maybe it’s just that tonight is surreal and his whole life has been surreal since the last time Morgan visited him at night to tell him his dreams had come true. Whatever it is, he slips off the bed into Morgan’s personal space and says, “So. Thank you.”

There’s a millisecond where the whole world seems to pause and Sasha doesn’t breathe or move or even think too hard. If he thought about this he might run screaming in the other direction. 

“Yeah?” Morgan says. One step closer puts them practically chest to chest. “Sasha, you don’t owe me anything, you know that, right? I didn’t want you to feel indebted, that wasn’t -” The air around them vibrates when Morgan’s voice dips that low, and Sasha’s knees melt so effectively it takes him a minute to figure out what Morgan’s actually saying.

When the words register, it’s like a dash of cold water. “What?” He really has no idea what Morgan is talking about. This conversation has taken a distinct turn towards the absurd.

“You don’t have to –,” Morgan tries again, but Sasha reaches up and wraps a hand around the back of his neck to pull him down, angling his own face to the side. Morgan just runs out of words, fades into a silence so blistering Sasha can feel the sing of it from his hair to his toes. He’s the one who gets impatient, pushes in to close that last breath of distance between them until their lips touch, brush, retreat.

Morgan kisses like Sasha might break, like if he touches with anything more than his mouth Sasha might disappear. It’s tempting at first, almost a challenge to get Morgan to meet him and steal tastes and tongue, no contact other than their mouths, no communication but their shredded breath. The burn of the alcohol has settled into something more satisfyingly primal and every ounce of awareness in his body has drained to between his hips, so after a while the almost chaste kisses become less of a challenge and more of a frustration. Sasha steps in even closer to get more contact. Morgan steps away, but Sasha follows, nudges him backward until Morgan’s legs hit the bed and he can’t retreat any more. 

“Sasha.” Somewhere between a sigh and a snarl, and it might be the hottest thing Sasha’s ever heard.

“This isn’t gratitude,” Sasha says, just to settle the matter. “Never was.” His hands flirt with the edge of Morgan’s shirt, smooth it upwards in finger-tip circles to get at skin. “So come on.”

Morgan takes a deep breath then jerks him forward – sudden, sweet pressure at hip and chest and sudden hands raking down his spine and into his hair. It’s too good, the way Morgan kisses like he’s starving for it, the way Sasha’s leg fits between Morgan’s and oh, god he’s so hard for this but it doesn’t matter because Morgan’s right there with him. He’s never quite sure afterwards whether he pushes or whether Morgan just tips them back onto the bed, but they end up jostling together, playing and tugging and trying to pin each other. It’s a little like fighting and a lot like sex, especially when Sasha lines their hips up and grinds down.

Morgan goes limp beneath him, and Sasha braces his arms and pushes himself up to get the best leverage between their hips. Their shirts got left behind some minutes ago, and he’s got a great view of Morgan’s body: all smooth planes and taut definition. Morgan’s got the perfect body for gymnastics. Sasha himself is a little leaner, almost stringy, less like a powerhouse and more like a dancer. It’s mesmerizing to watch the deep shadows shift over Morgan’s stomach in the murky darkness, watch the delicate little flutter of abs every time Morgan cants his hips up into Sasha’s rhythm. 

The view is so good that the sensations almost creep up on him, until suddenly he realizes that his spine has gone molten-hot and he starts making frantic bargains with himself: he’ll give anything to last just five more minutes. Five more minutes. Five more – every inch of his skin feels incandescent and the friction of his pants, wet just over the head of his cock, is so good he can feel the prickle of moisture behind his eyes because it’s just so intense. 

Morgan bucks up off the bed and grinds a vicious circle against him and that’s it, he is so completely gone. All he can do is press his face into Morgan’s neck and ride it out while his spine tries to tie itself in knots and every muscle he owns trembles through the tension.

Sasha may still feel weak from the climax, but Morgan’s still hard and intense beneath him. “Show me what you need,” Sasha whispers into Morgan’s mouth, and swallows the broken little noises he makes as he takes Sasha’s hand and guides it down his body to his crotch, shows how he likes to be stroked and what feels good.

Sasha’s brain makes a feeble attempt to rebel here – he’s never touched another guy’s cock before – but Morgan’s groan is fascinating and he forgets to be freaked out. Instead he watches the lines of muscle across Morgan’s stomach when he flexes up into Sasha’s strokes, the way his eyes squeeze shut when Sasha gets the pressure right. They open again when Sasha’s hand goes away briefly, but it’s only to tug at the button of his pants then slide beneath his waistband to find skin. Morgan gives a rumbling, humming noise of approval and Sasha marvels at how the feeling is strangely familiar, yet completely foreign. 

It takes a little experimentation, but soon Morgan is drawn out and arched tense beneath him, gasping into kisses that are less about kissing and more about sharing breath. 

“Is it good?” Sasha breathes against his skin, and Morgan grunts out a, “Yeah, _please_.” Sasha can tell he’s close so he slows down, lazy tugging stokes until Morgan is twisting under him, arched practically off the bed to try and find more friction. 

“Okay,” Sasha soothes, “Okay,” and it’s only a few more strokes before Morgan just slips apart for him, trembles into pieces between gritted teeth and bowed up spine. 

After should be awkward, but it’s hard to find enough energy to care. He nuzzles up beneath Morgan’s neck and feels rough fingernails scrape comfortingly through the short hair at the base of his neck. Their breathing evens out into soft and deep, meditative.

“You gonna regret this?” He can feel the way Morgan’s voice rumbles through his chest and throat. Sasha shakes his head and lets his hair brush against Morgan’s shoulder. 

“No.” He yawns. “Always kind of thought I would, when I thought about this – with guys – but now that I’m actually here. No. It’s good.” Morgan’s fingers in his hair are going to put him to sleep.

“You gonna feel that way in the morning?” 

Sasha snorts. “We’ll find out.”

That seems to relax Morgan, and Sasha strokes a hand over his chest, resting it over the pad of muscle there where he can feel the flutter of heartbeat and the lift of breath. 

“You’re kinda like a furnace,” Sasha observes idly. Morgan chuckles.

“Get off me if you’re hot.” 

Sasha nods and rolls away, settling on his side so that they’re facing. “You gonna be here in the morning?” There’s no pressure in the question, Sasha’s more idly curious than anything else.

“I guess we’ll find out,” says Morgan, and Sasha smiles his way into sleep.

*

The next morning could be awkward, except for the knock that comes on Sasha’s door at seven am and wakes them both.

“What?” Sasha grumps, still too half-awake to be polite.

“Just letting you know we have fifteen minutes until we leave for San Jose,” says the voice of the Disney PA in charge of getting them places on time.

“Fifteen –,” says Morgan through a yawn, then the actual meaning of the number hits them both. “Oh god. I need to -.”

“Yeah, get out of here,” agrees Sasha. “See you on the bus.” Morgan pulls on his shirt and dashes out the door. Sasha watches him go, then heads for the shower.

The rest of the day is surprisingly normal, and the show that night goes well. 

Afterwards, Sasha begs off hanging out with the others, and retreats to his room to think. He leaves the door open, and Morgan comes in half an hour later and closes it. Sasha’s sitting on the floor with his back to the bed and his laptop open between his knees, reading email, so Morgan sits down beside him.

“Paul knows,” Morgan says.

“I figured he would. Did you have to tell him?” It doesn’t really bother Sasha. Paul and Morgan do the freaky twin thing pretty often. It would have been weird if Morgan _had_ been able to keep it from Paul.

“No.” 

They sit in silence for the next fifteen minutes. Sasha types, and Morgan watches him. Ordinarily it bothers him when people stare, but Morgan isn’t ordinary people. Sasha’s stomach rumbles loudly into the quiet, and they both look down at it.

“Have you eaten?” Morgan asks, and Sasha shakes his head. Morgan just laughs at him, then reaches in and grabs his chin, holding him still for a kiss. When he ends it his hand settles at Sasha’s hip, possessive.

“I’m going to order in for pizza,” says Morgan. “What do you want on yours?”

Sasha shrugs and melts back against the bed, stretching his legs out and pointing his toes so that his calf muscles pull tight and solid. “Whatever you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“’Kay,” says Morgan. “Be back in ten minutes.”

The door closes behind him, and Sasha stares at it, wiggling his toes idly. He pulled his shoulder a little on rings during the show, and it radiates ache like low-level heat, just enough to remind him it’s there, not enough to be annoying. It’s a healthy sort of ache that will be gone in the morning. 

Maybe they should talk about this, about them, about last night. Sasha’s never considered doing much beyond kissing with another guy before, and he’s pretty sure that Morgan hadn’t either, if the way that Paul stared at him all day was any indication. 

“Thirty minutes,” says Morgan, returning and plopping back down on the floor. “I got sausage and onions and mushrooms.” 

Maybe they should talk about it, but they won’t. Sasha nods and closes the laptop.

“Thirty whole minutes,” he says. Morgan’s eyes widen fractionally. 

“I hope you don’t mind mushrooms,” Morgan whispers. Sasha leans into Morgan’s personal space and cuts off the sentence with a kiss. One of his hands flattens against Morgan’s stomach and the other balls in his shirt to hold him in place. Morgan sighs into his mouth and traces absent patterns down his spine. 

“I like them,” Sasha says, leaning back, and Morgan looks puzzled for a moment before remembering what they’re talking about. 

“Good.” 

When the pizza comes twenty-five minutes later, they still haven’t talked about whatever it is they’re doing. Morgan’s mouth is on Sasha’s throat, they’ve already discarded both their shirts, and the pizza girl leaves the box outside the door when neither of them answers.

Maybe talking is overrated. They’re flying by the seat of their pants, but that’s been the story of Sasha's life since this thing began, since Beijing or camp or Nationals before that. It’s turned out okay so far. With Morgan’s solid weight above him, Sasha can’t feel anything but invincible.


End file.
